


teach me how to say goodbye

by smallredboy



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alexander Hamilton's Daddy Issues TM, Angst, Character Death, Father Figures, Gen, PTSD, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 12:31:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12190056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallredboy/pseuds/smallredboy
Summary: The day Washington dies, Alexander mourns for both the ex-president and the men he tried to see as fathers.





	teach me how to say goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> hello naughty children its "hamiltons daddy issues" time
> 
> enjoy this angst!

The news come by a horse and a sweaty, small man arriving at Alexander and Eliza's house. Alexander breathes hard when he sees him, in black robes and a letter in his hands.

"Mr. Washington is dead, Mr— Mr. Hamilton."

Alexander drops the glass he was drinking from, staring at the messenger. He retrieves the letter and slams the door on the man's face before curling into himself.

Washington is dead. Another father figure that left, he might be forty, but oh God, oh God, he's needed a father for as long as he remembers. One he never got in his biological one. He clung to professors at King's, and learned that all they'd do was leave. Move on from him.

He can't breathe as he tries to relax his shoulders and his head hits the door. Of course Washington would die before he did. That was obvious.

He didn't _want_ him to be another father figure. Hell, he'd stayed away from him just so it wouldn't happen. But then he'd started calling him son, with such an affectionate tone compared his usual cold demeanor. That man didn't have any children, although he was married to Martha Washington. Of course he'd want a son out of the soldier twenty-two years his junior.

He closes his eyes and lets tears spill. He's doomed to be this, isn't he? To be fatherless, to have nothing resembling a parent. And yet he has to try and take care of seven children. Philip's only eighteen, Angelica has panic attacks. He doesn't know how to take care of children when he was never taken care of as a child.

"Alexander?"

Eliza; the greeting is stuck in his throat. Eliza. The woman he cheated on with a girl too young, too fragile, abused and forced to push him into a blackmail scheme. Eliza, the woman that birthed all of his children. He's going to puke. "Betsey." He closes his eyes tight. "Washington died. They— I got a letter about it."

"Oh." Eliza has always been soft-spoken, but she's only gotten quieter ever since the pamphlet happened. He hates himself for it. "I'm so sorry, Alexander."

He clenches his jaw. He's left alone yet again, he's in his forties, he shouldn't be looking for a father figure desperately. He might've rejected it at first, out of fear. All he knows from fatherly men are that they leave. They leave, they leave, they leave.

He shoots up from his curled on himself position, his head hitting against the door again. He lets out a sob, it wracking his body. Eliza just stares at him.

He knows Eliza's father is a good man who hasn't left his daughter. But he also knows Lafayette is an orphan, just like him, and that Laurens' father hated him for his abolitionist views. Maybe good fathers are rare. Maybe he's an awful father.

He gets up with shaky steps, his lip trembling. "Eliza, I'm not— I'm being a good father for our children, right? I'm not... I'm not... being neglectful, right?" He's always staying at work and Philip loves him and he loves him too and all his other children adore him, yet he's going to start crying.

"You're not." Eliza sweeps him into a hug, and Alexander finally breaks under his wife's touch. The wife he's wronged, the wife he loves, the wife he cheated on with Laurens and with Maria and and _and_ —

Terrible. He's a terrible father, a terrible husband, his only redeeming quality is that he knows how to use words in his favor. Hell, even that could be used to manipulate people. He tries not to cry too much, because tears already stream down his cheeks.

"You're nothing like your father, Alexander."

He digs his fingers into her dress and his sobs wrack his body. Washington is dead, his father hasn't been around for all his life, and all the other father figures he's clung onto are barely in his memory.

"I'm sorry," he breathes. He hates being vulnerable, an open book about his feelings. He's closed up ever since Laurens died years ago— Laurens was the only he talked to about his memories and his childhood and his fears and the hurricane. Eliza has seen him talk in his sleep and wake up from nightmares, but he hasn't opened up.

Opening up about personal things is costly. He knows that.

"You've got nothing to be sorry for." Eliza kisses his cheek. Undeserving, his mind screams at him. "Now get ready, dinner is soon."

The next day, Alexander only wears black and he mourns both for Washington and for the rest he's lost. 


End file.
